Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 2).djvu/141

 "Strange to say, in one so young as I was at that time, I grew morose and splenetic; I thought every man happier than myself, and I envied and hated all mankind! In this disposition I came into this neighbourhood; its wild romantic hills and valleys charmed me; in the adjacent village I resided some time, and spent my days in rambling in the woods. At length I met with a solitary hut, which seemed to have been not long uninhabited, on the side of a hill. In this spot I fixed my residence for near two years. It has been observed, 'That a person must be either a God, or a brute, who can be able to live alone.' Providence certainly designed us for a social state, and a misanthrope lives a burden to himself, and dead to every pleasure in life.

"A very severe cold, which I caught in one of my rambles, and which produced a fever that confined me near a week, and precluded me from getting even the necessaries to preserve my existence, first brought me